


Family

by jynx



Category: Avengers (Comics), Iron Man (Comic)
Genre: Gen, tony has a crush on steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-26
Updated: 2014-10-25
Packaged: 2018-02-22 15:40:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2512952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jynx/pseuds/jynx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony considers his family</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Family had always been an abstract thing to Tony Stark. It wasn’t tangible, wasn’t something he could come up with an equation or draft it out to have it make sense. Then again, Tony had never been shown what family was. 

His grandfather and father had constantly butted heads over how to run the “family business” and Tony’s mother had been too busy being a socialite to deal with a child, so he had been left in Jarvis’ care for the majority of his childhood…if you could call it a childhood. Howard Jr. had had no idea what to do with Tony, or what to make of his innate ability to grasp complicated technical and mechanical knowledge. Howard Sr., on the other hand, had encouraged Tony to experiment and learn more about the subjects Tony had merely regarded as a game.  
It had been his grandfather who had fought with his father over getting Tony’s IQ tested and listed, had him join Mensa, and had him in MIT by age 15. Tony hadn’t had a choice in a lot of his early life. He did what his grandfather told him to do; Tony didn’t dare not do what the old man told him to do.

But his father and grandfather were both dead now, along with his mother. All he had left was Jarvis, until he took over the company and promoted Ms Pepper Potts to be his administrative assistant and hired Happy Hogan to be his driver and bodyguard when the man had saved his life. They were his family, small and unassuming, demanding nothing except that he lets them care and worry over him. In return, he kept them safe, kept the dangers of his other life away from them.

Rhodey took a little longer to become family. He wasn’t the type of person Tony normally associated himself with, but he found himself drawn to the colonel. Tony didn’t have to protect Rhodey, which was new and exhilarating. If anything, when Rhodey had slammed him up against a wall and kissed him hungrily, Tony felt himself addicted to the feeling of vulnerability. He was so tired of being strong, of doing all the protecting and making all the choices, it was rather nice to have someone else do it for him. Not only was it nice, it was addicting.

If there was anything Tony knew about himself, it was that he had an addictive personality. Sex, booze, money, it didn’t really matter. He was addicted to these things, and knew he would stay addicted to them for a good, long time.

It was probably, Tony mused, why he was so attentive to Steve Rogers. Not only was the man absolutely perfect (physically), but he also had a mind that challenged Tony. Sure, Steve didn’t always understand what Tony was talking about, but he would question until he did, forcing Tony to think and explain instead of simply ramble. In a way, Steve had also become part of Tony’s little family. The man challenged him, forced him to acknowledge him.

Was it any wonder Tony was head over heels in love with him?


	2. Reprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony no longer has his family

Tony had chosen his family. Jarvis, Pepper, Happy, Rhodey, Steve. It has been widened to Jarvis, Pepper, Happy, Rhodey, Steve, Sal, Maya, and the Avengers in general. Now, though, it was shrinking.

Happy was the first to go, dying because of him, because of the choices he’d made. It didn’t matter who had dealt the blows, it had been Tony who had turned off the life support. He had been the one who had ended any and all hope – even if that hope had been nonexistent in the first place.

Steve had been next. Again, Tony hadn’t pulled the trigger, but Steve was dead because of him, because of him trying to prevent this disaster. The very worst scenario he had come up with when Registration had been breached could never live up to the reality. The reality was a world without Steve, without his kindness and understanding, and his unwillingness to let Tony destroy his own life. Most important, Tony had lost that love.

Rhodey had been lost, not through death, but because Tony had done his best to alienate the man. Unfortunately, Rhodey was the only one he could trust implicitly now, he only hoped the man would follow his last wishes. 

Sal had been killed through his own stupid ego; Maya had betrayed him to his very worst enemy and nearly gotten them both killed. The Avengers, any incarnation, either hated him or pitied him; the pity was worse than the hatred. 

Jarvis, the man who had raised him, helped him, been there no matter what, had been replaced by a Skrull. Had been a Skrull for who knows how long. And, fool that he was, he had never noticed. In fact, the majority of friends who still talked and associated with him, were Skrulls. Hank, Jan… who else?

Tony stood in the bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror and realized a very painful truth – he was alone, and it was no one’s fault but his own.


End file.
